Announcing Penguin Random House’s 2026 Edgar Award Winners 🎉

By Rafa Ashraf | May 1 2026 | AdultGeneral

We are proud to announce that 3 Penguin Random House books have won a MWA’s Edgar Award for 2026!

  • Best Novel: THE BIG EMPTY by Robert Crais (9780525535775, Putnam)
  • Best First Novel by an American Author: DEAD MONEY by Jakob Kerr (9780593726723, Bantam)
  • Best Fact Crime: MURDERLAND by Caroline Fraser (9780593657249, Penguin Books)

According to the official website, this award honors the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television published or produced in 2025. The 80th Annual Edgar® Awards was celebrated on April 29, 2026, at the Marriott Marquis Times Square Hotel.

Please join us in a heartfelt congratulations for not only our authors, but the publishers, editors, and everyone in between who made this into a reality.

Check out the winner newsletter HERE!

The Big Empty
The Big Empty
Robert Crais
9780525535775
Private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, face a cryptic case and a terrifying, unpredictable killer in this twisty, satisfying thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais.
$19.00 US
Aug 12, 2025
Paperback
384 Pages
G.P. Putnam's Sons
US, Canada, Open Mkt
View on Edelweiss
Dead Money
Dead Money
Jakob Kerr
9780593726723
“A stone-cold banger of a novel—a twisty journey through Silicon Valley’s dark side, wrapped in a stunning mystery package with some wild surprises along the way.” —Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter“Terrific... an unpredictable nesting-box of surprises.” —The New York Times Book Review
$19.00 US
Jan 27, 2026
Paperback
416 Pages
Bantam
US, Canada, Open Mkt
View on Edelweiss
Murderland
Murderland
Caroline Fraser
9780593657249
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Prairie Fires comes a terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond—a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence
$21.00 US
Jun 09, 2026
Paperback
480 Pages
Penguin Books
US, Canada, Open Mkt
View on Edelweiss
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